Dark Souls II

Dark Souls II's Director Talks About What's Changing And What's Staying The Same

As part of the Gamescom festivities, Namco Bandai has released a video interview with Dark Souls II's new director, Yui Tanimura, about what changes are coming to the sequel, and what won't be changing.

You can check out the video below where Tanimura talks about his plans for the game and all the new deaths players can look forward to seeing. There's also a healthy dose of gameplay footage.

For our own interview with Tanimura at E3, head here. Dark Souls II is coming to PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 next year.

This game scares me to death. I haven't played any of the Souls series because grinding and dying and crying throughout the game just sounds tedious. However this second entry is supposed to be slightly more accessible to chicken sh*ts like me. I really want to join the Souls fans and get in on the death and I hope this is the way to go and the place to start..

Guys, I've been thinking about purchasing Dark Souls I before the sequel comes out, but I'm told it's insanely difficult, and that most players give up long before reaching the final boss. Is this true?
Also, from what I've watched in youtube LPs, the characters and enemies all seem a bit too outlandish, almost alien looking with weird glowing armor and stuff. Does it feel like a medieval adventure game at all?

This guy always looks so disinterested (or half-asleep) when he's presenting the game. :(
That said, there is only one thing I truly NEED to have in Dark Souls II for it to be a success in my eyes: a decent final boss fight. I can handle the spotty targeting system, I can deal with the frame rate issues, I'll even survive the perched Anor Londo knights. The only thing I absolutely cannot stand about this series (and I LOVE this series) are the *** final boss fights. King Allant and Gwyn were both incredibly disappointing, gimmicky final fights. Allant I can understand as being a stylistic, kind of poetic boss fight - it's not meant to be difficult. But Gwyn is unforgivable. He is the single, major flaw about Dark Souls. What I would love for DSII to have is a final boss similar to Manus, in which you have to use items to defeat him, or maybe phases you have to get through like a one-man WoW raid or something. Not just "I'm gonna hit you three times with my flaming sword, lol learn to parry" ***.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely pumped for Dark Souls II, but the way the director talks about Dark Souls II worries me. For those that don't know, the original director of Demon's/Dark Souls, Hidetaka Miyazaki, was asked to step down from his director role for Dark Souls II. This new director has never worked on a Souls game in his career. That's a bit of a red flag for me.
The way Miyazaki presented the world and the story was absolutely brilliant. Almost all elements of the lore are hidden in item descriptions, conversations, and most importantly, the scenery/environment. It all wove together to tell a very exciting but tragic story that was never shoved in the player's face. Its because of that fact that people on Youtube are STILL making Dark Souls lore videos two full years after the game was released. People are still deciphering answers and still theorizing, speculating, and connecting to weave the entire thing together. Its quite amazing how it has really brought the Dark Souls community together (one of my favorite online communities there is).
So when this new director says over and over and over again that the core of Dark Souls is satisfaction from the challenge, I just feel like he doesn't quite "get it." He doesn't really understand why fans are still playing this game to this day.
Trust me, I hope I'm wrong, and I hope that the story is just as mysterious yet beautiful (though in a previous interview, the co-director basically admitted that the story would be much more direct this time around, which is very disappointing to hear). Overall, I'll still buy the game and I'll still probably love playing through it. But will it be a game I'm still discussing with other people in 2016? Will I remember the story and recall how much time I spent pouring through lore ideas with other community members? I really hope so, but its hard to bank on it when Miyazaki isn't in the picture.

I hated Demons Souls. Or rather, it never grabbed my interest. I bought it, played it for like an hour, and was thoroughly disappointed. I popped it back in like every 6 months, but it just never did it for me. For some reason, I decided to buy Dark Souls on day one, and I've loved it ever since.

One thing I hope they address is the online connectivity. I played Dark Souls from three different locations, and each was a lag-fest. What's the point of having such tight responsive combat design, if people will be able to ignore all of that and just ohko stab you from 10 feet away?

Lag completely ruined the MP experience for this game for me. Every time I got invaded, I'd have to turn it off, because the lag was so bad. Could never defend myself what with people just rubberbanding constantly. Might've been my internet connection (I doubt it, though. I mean, 2 of those 3 locations had top-notch internet), but eventually I just got the idea to play the entire thing offline. Was kinda lame.

I got Dark souls Prepare To Die Addition during the steam summer sale and have already played 256 hours lol. I wanted to play demon souls because i didn't want to miss out on the experience. My brother was in the store about to buy it then the clerk told him that the servers were shut down, so no multiplayer experience. The worst part was that my friend owned the game and let me borrow it FOR A YEAR. I NEVER TOUCHED THE GAME BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE STUPID. WHY DID I DO THAT? Is it still worth getting Demon Souls even with the servers offline? I mean Dark Souls 2 is just around the corner.

All i want is the ability to join my friends game without hassle, they can still keep the same system for the game but just give the people the option, because i just played with my friend anyways it was just hassle.

I still haven't finished Dark Souls cause it's been a while since I played anything else than Black Ops 2 or BF3 with my inlaws during the weekend. I should get to it though since I can't wait for the sequel. The dude in the video looks like he needs sleep badly.

The still the video loaded on with the page makes him look drunk. I love drunken gaming, but I imagine it would be a disaster with this title. I'd probably end up raging and trying to gnaw the controller in my drunk fury.